The plot
was not all that exciting. A young woman, Alyce, hears a visiting
missionary at church and is moved to pledge money for their support –
a large amount of money. When her wealthy father will not come
through with the money, she has to come up with an idea to gather the
amount in just a few weeks. Even when she does acquire a few hundred
dollars for the cause she ends up giving it away to someone in need.
Then she
has an amazing idea. It's 1916 and not many women drive. But Alyce
loves to drive, and drive fast. Her father has a mechanic who is
building a racing car. She convinces the mechanic to let her be the
driver in the upcoming race. She'll have to hide her identity
because women, drivers or not, are not allowed on the racing track.
So the
plot was not so exciting. Just the plot would have made for a
novella or short story. In fact, I thought the plot development was
slow much of the time.
The
strength of the novel was the character portrayal. The characters
are developed well. There is some built in antagonism as two men
want Alyce's affection. The one thing I didn't like about Alyce as a
character was that, even though she is very adventurous, she was kind
of dumb when it came to figuring out people. Perhaps there were too
many hints, but I knew who the bad guy was long before Alyce did. I
don't like it when I am smarter than the heroine. It is frustrating
to continue reading.
I found
the second half of the book was better than the first half. And one
does learn a bit about early car racing.
It is an
OK read, nothing fantastic.
Anne
Mateer has a passion for history and writing historical fiction. You
can find out more about her at www.annemateer.com.
Bethany
House (a division of Baker Publishing Group), 317 pages.
I
received a complimentary copy of this book from Bethany House for the
purpose of this review.
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